Did Muhammad Exist?: An Inquiry into Islam's Obscure Origins (Hardcover)

By Robert Spencer

Product Description

Are jihadists dying for a fiction? Everything you thought you knew about Islam is about to change.

Did Muhammad exist?

It is a question that few have thought – or dared to ask. Virtually everyone, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, takes for granted that the prophet of Islam lived and led in seventh-century Arabia.

But this widely accepted story begins to crumble on close examination, as Robert Spencer shows in his eye-opening new book.

In his blockbuster bestseller "The Truth About Muhammad," Spencer revealed the shocking contents of the earliest Islamic biographical material about the prophet of Islam. Now, in "Did Muhammad Exist?" he uncovers that material’s surprisingly shaky historical foundations. Spencer meticulously examines historical records and archaeological findings and pioneering new scholarship to reconstruct what we can know about Muhammad, the Quran and the early days of Islam. The evidence he presents challenges the most fundamental assumptions about Islam’s origins.

"Did Muhammad Exist?" reveals:

How the earliest biographical material about Muhammad dates from at least 125 years after his reported death

How six decades passed before the Arabian conquerors – or the people they conquered – even mentioned Muhammad, the Quran or Islam

The startling evidence that the Quran was constructed from existing materials – including pre-Islamic Christian texts

How even Muslim scholars acknowledge that countless reports of Muhammad’s deeds were fabricated

Why a famous mosque inscription may refer not to Muhammad but, astonishingly, to Jesus

How the oldest records referring to a man named Muhammad bear little resemblance to the now-standard Islamic account of the life of the prophet

The many indications that Arabian leaders fashioned Islam for political reasons

Far from an anti-Islamic polemic, "Did Muhammad Exist?" is a sober but unflinching look at the origins of one of the world’s major religions. While Judaism and Christianity have been subjected to searching historical criticism for more than two centuries, Islam has never received the same treatment on any significant scale.

The real story of Muhammad and early Islam has long remained in the shadows. Robert Spencer brings it into the light at long last.

About the Author

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch, a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and the associate director of the American Freedom Defense Initiative. He is also a weekly columnist for FrontPage Magazine and a frequent contributor to WND. He holds an MA in religious studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and has been studying Islamic theology, law and history in depth since 1980.

He has led seminars on Islam and jihad for the United States Central Command, United States Army Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army's Asymmetric Warfare Group, the FBI, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and the U.S. intelligence community.

His articles have appeared in the New York Post, Washington Times, Dallas Morning News, Journal of International Security Affairs, Guardian and National Post, and on Townhall and National Review Online. He has spoken at Dartmouth College, Stanford University, New York University, Brown University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Virginia, the College of William and Mary, Washington University of St. Louis, the University of Wisconsin at Madison and Milwaukee, as well as on the BBC, “ABC News,” CNN, Fox (the “O'Reilly Factor,” “Sean Hannity Show,” “Glenn Beck Show,” “Fox and Friends”), PBS, MSNBC, CNBC, C-Span, France24 and Croatia National Television (HTV). On the radio he has been featured on “Bill O'Reilly's Radio Factor,” the “Mark Levin Show,” “Laura Ingraham Show,” “Bill Bennett's Morning in America,” “Savage Nation,” “Sean Hannity Show,” “Alan Colmes Show,” “G. Gordon Liddy Show,” “Neal Boortz Show,” “Michael Medved Show,” “Michael Reagan Show,” “Rusty Humphries Show,” “Larry Elder Show,” “Barbara Simpson Show” and Vatican Radio.

Spencer is the author of 12 books, including the daring “Did Muhammad Exist? An Inquiry Into Islam's Obscure Origins” and two New York Times bestsellers, “The Truth About Muhammad” and “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades).”

Product Reviews

This powerful 4-part DVD is packed with hours of hard-hitting information from former Muslims and experts in Islam: a professor, an apologist, a missionary to Muslims, three ex-terrorists, a journalist who survived Palestinian terror tactics.